


Every Single Tree

by greenet



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Team Dynamics, characters who might be robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenet/pseuds/greenet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Ward two months, more near misses and fuck ups than he's had in his entire career so far, and a visit from Hawkeye before he goes "fuck it" and embraces the fact that he's an asshole robot.</p>
<p>Weirdly, that makes people like him <i>more</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Single Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Written while avoiding looking at my thesis. Probably very soon to be Jossed. (hee!)

It takes Ward two months, more near misses and fuck ups than he's had in his entire career so far, and a visit from Hawkeye before he goes "fuck it" and embraces the fact that he's an asshole robot(1).

Weirdly, that makes people like him _more_.

"I thought you wanted me to get along with people," Ward says, as he crouches behind a car, waiting for something to blow up, again. Coulson is hiding behind a dumpster. He shrugs.

"I wanted you to work with them, not just automatically disregard everything they say. That doesn't necessarily mean that you always have to get along." Coulson gets the abashed look he gets when he's suppressing yet another 'when I worked with the avengers' story. Then he smiles.

Ward is instantly suspicious.

"I feel I should warn you that there's a bet going at headquarters over who you're going to... get together with, though. Apparently I have quite good odds," he adds, with a frankly baffling pride, just as whatever was supposed to blow up blows up quite spectacularly.

 

(1)As yelled by Skye when he actually started enforcing his "push ups as punishment" routine.

*

Ward, to what he later discovers is absolutely nobody's surprise, doesn't really have friends. He has colleagues, and some he gets along better with, and some ex-lovers who probably doesn't currently want to kill him (a couple more who definitely do), but not friends. So he has to resort to either a) asking Coulson what the fuck? which would probably get him laughed at. Again. Or b) spying on his own team. He's much more comfortable with that option.

*

"Oh come on!" Skye says, and throws a card onto the table. "We have a teacher/student thing going on! Sizzling with chemistry and what have you!"

Fitz flails, while Simmons laughs. "But the yelling," Fitz protests. "Clearly a sign of macho homoerotic sublimation!" He looks at Simmons for back up, but she shakes her head.

"Biology, yes, psychology, no. Anyway, I've seen him looking at me, too."

"Well, you have--" Fitz starts, then cuts himself off as the three women at the table stare at him expectantly. "...You're a very charming woman with lots of experience, it's only natural-- no?"

Melinda shakes her head minutely, Skye scrunches up her nose and Simmons nods seriously.

"Personally, I find experience a plus in my lovers, I don't see why he should be different."

"You guys are so weird," Skye mutters.

"I hear my odds are quite good," Coulson offers plaintively as he adds a card to the table.

They consider this in silence while the game continues around the table.

"You do have the whole older mentor thing going," Skye says, sounding very fair about it. "I mean, if you go for that kind of thing, I imagine it's very attractive."

"What about my odds?" Melinda asks, smiling slightly.

"Ah, I believe people at headquarter still remember what happened the last time you were involved in a bet," Coulson says.

From where he is hiding, Ward flinches. He remembers too.

*

So, yes, there's definitely a bet going on, and he's definitely at the center of it.

And aside from acknowledging that when agents get bored enough, they'll place bets on anything at all, Ward doesn't understand _why_. He's really not that interesting. That's not false modesty, it's the truth. He's worked hard his entire life to be highly skilled at what he does, and he is, but that doesn't make him particularly unique at SHIELD.

Coulson gives him a long look. "Well, the other bets involving you are about whether or not you're a robot, and when you're going to have a psychotic break and kill us all." He blinks and looks as surprised as he ever does, which is to say, mildly baffled. "Huh, I didn't intend to tell you that."

Ward stops fiddling with his handcuffs to stare back. "I think we've been drugged. And I'm not actually a robot," he adds, vaguely wounded. "People really think that?"

"Sometimes I wonder whether I am," Coulson muses. "But then I think: Wouldn't I know if I were? But no," he gives Ward a reassuring smile. "Nobody really thinks that. Mostly they just think you're an asshole."

Ward can't really dispute that.

Before he can get his head together to ask Coulson more questions about his "am I a robot theory?", FitzSimmons come to their rescue. With actual tiny robots. Of course.

*

"I don't want to sleep with you," Ward says, at the start of his next training session with Skye. "I just want to teach you survival skills so maybe you'll live to become an agent."

Skye blinks. "O...kay?"

Ward nods, satisfied, and ignores the "you are a crazy robot person" looks she gives him during the session. That's one down.

*

He strides in the middle of a Science Twin argument and wait for them to notice that he's there. It takes shorter time than usual, probably because he's not interrupting them.

"Yes, what?" FitzSimmons say in unison.

"You're both very attractive--" they both preen. "but I find the whole talking in unison thing creepy, and, Fitz, I find you very annoying in general --" Fitz looks outraged. "while, Simmons, I have feeling you would be grading me on a scale, and it's really off putting."

Simmons shrugs. "Fair enough."

*

Coulson looks very, very amused. He lifts an eyebrow expectantly.

Ward narrows his eyes at him, then sighs, shakes his head and leaves.

He hears Coulson laughing as the door glides shut behind him.

*

"Just say the word," he tells Melinda as they taxi into Madripoor.

"I don't sleep with fanboys," she deadpans. Which was about what he expected, really.

*

And then he meets Doreen Green, and people stop wondering if he's a robot, and start taking bets on his sexual kinks instead. Ward doesn't really care. Doreen is funny, caring and the most dangerous person he's ever met. And he's always liked squirrels.

"You're the perfect couple," Skye says, amazed, as they crawl through an airduct. "You have no personality, and she has, like, all of it."

Ward beams. "Isn't she great?"

"Who even _are_ you?"


End file.
